The strange and beautiful life of Rodney Dangerfield

One of the last great stalwarts of old-school stand-up has died. When Rodney Dangerfield was young and arrogant and 19, he set out for upstate New York to become a great comedian. He was mediocre to poor, so he married the signer and moved to New Jersey to sell paint and siding.

People have to suffer for great art. Suffering takes on many forms. Living in the Suburban purgatory of Englewood New Jersey through the "Happy Days" years was Rodney Dangerfield's liminal state. He emerged from that dark place a changed man.

Rodney now had a beautiful gift: insult everyone and then insult yourself worse. Rodbey Dangerfield was the king of making people laugh at him. The jokes would flow, enticing you forcing you really to laugh at, not with, him. Cruel humor, dredged up from an ugly part of human nature brought crashing down upon his head, a self-inflicted wound: the verbal equivalent of the carnival self-immolation artist.

Go and rent Back to School and remember: "you're a Melon".

Rodney died of a broken heart. He is survived by three wifes, the last of whom loved him dearly.